3 Strength Training Exercises To Improve Your Run
By K10 Patel / Jan 7th, 2024
It’s no secret that strength training can maintain or improve running form as well as prevent injuries. Strength training can do this by mixing in endurance and stability through resistance exercises. Galvanizing your run whether it is to increase your speed, working your non-running muscles, or improving your running economy, is a great result to achieve from strength training exercises.
Side note: Running economy is all about how to efficiently use oxygen. Most runners use the VO2 max parameter to gage how much oxygen they are utilizing during a run. The lower the oxygen consumed, the better your running economy is. You can read all about VO2 max from my 2023 blog. Strength training exercises help with running economy.
Here are three of the best strength training exercises to do at the gym for runners. I’m by no means an expert on strength training, but I have selected these three exercises with a focus on muscles that runners do not use while running. Keep in mind that there are many more exercises that can be done in the gym, however, these are the three that I have handpicked.
- Weighted Squats
- Bench Press
- Glute Bridges
1. Weighted Squats
This exercise involves weight and works on your glutes (butt area), legs (quadriceps and hamstrings), and lower back area. It also works other muscles but those are the main ones this exercise works.
While holding the bar on your upper back and ensuring that your feet are at least shoulder width apart (preferably slightly more than shoulder width apart), squat down until your thighs are at least parallel with the floor. While squatting down, ensure to keep your chest up and your back straight as possible.
- Do not arch your back while squatting.
- Do not lift your heel or your toes off the floor during the entire process of the squat. If you are squatting down and your heel lifts off the floor, try and widen your feet from each other to give you better stability. If this doesn’t help, take a video of yourself doing the squat. How deep are you going down? Your heel may be lifting off the floor since you are going to deep. Try to limit your down position to the point where your thighs are parallel with the floor.
- Do not rest the bar on the bony middle part of your upper back. Push your chest out and
When you are squatting down, make sure the bar is slowly moving down as well. Same thing when you are moving up – Make sure the bar is slowly moving up at the same rate as your hips. When the hips start to move up and the bar does not move up, this is improper form and stressing your lower back. Learning the proper form in doing a weighted squat is critical, so I would recommend that weighted squats be started off with just the bar and no weight.
The link below is a Jeremy Ethier seven-minute video on the proper formwork for a weighted squat. I highly recommend you watch the entire video since it provides the best instruction I have ever seen on how to properly do a squat.
2. Bench Press
This exercise also involves weight and works on your chest, shoulder and tricep muscles. All these muscles are not typically used for running, therefore, runners who solely focus on running have weak chest, shoulder, and triceps.
As the name suggests, this exercise requires a bench on which you lie horizontal with your back on the bench.
Make sure you use the bar first with no weight to practice proper form. This includes lining up under the bar such that your eyes are right below the bar. Your feet should be flat on the floor but your legs should be at slightly less than 90 degrees.
The link below is yet another Jeremy Ethier video on the proper formwork for a bench press. His videos do a really good job on your form as you are going through the motion of the exercise as well as setting yourself up in the right position.
3. Glute Bridges
This exercise does not involve any weights and works on exactly what the exercise name is – your glutes (butt muscles). A little bit of hamstrings and the hips are worked out, however, the minimus, medius, and maximus muscles are the primary targets of this exercise.
Lie down in a horizontal position with your back on the floor and your knees pointing up. Your hand should be lying flat on each side. Thrust your butt up and hold for 15 seconds then come back down and rest for 5 seconds. Do about 10 repetitions of this. If you can’t do 10 reps, do as many as you can and then build up to 10 reps.
Here is one of the best 10-minute workouts associated with the glute bridge exercise and various variations of it. If you can complete this 10-minute Pamela Reif workout without any breaks or other issues, you are in extremely good shape.
https://youtu.be/iHBZiO5rDQ8?si=F6Jt3w-MGniyyOLA
If you end up mastering this, try doing it with some added weight around the waist.
Bottom Line
Strength and stability exercises for runners can support any runner’s training schedule by improving overall health, running economy, and muscles that a typical runner would not train. Even runners with consistent high mileage weeks will start to lose upper body muscles if no strength training is mixed in. Working on exercises and using proper form to do the weighted squat, bench press, and glute bridge are great ways to strengthen your chest, triceps, shoulders, glutes, and back.
Do additional exercises for other muscles if you have weaker muscles than the ones that are worked on within the weighted squat, bench press, and glute bridges. Nevertheless, go to the gym or perform resistance training at home to better yourself. Remember that training schedules or workouts with just running week-after-week are not galvanized compared to training schedules with strength training mixed in.